#rebracketing

[hbmmaster]

"let's ago!"

[linguistics-and-such]

Rebracketing is a fascinating (in my opinion) thing that happens in languages.

Rebracketing is when a compound word or portmanteau (words made up of two other words or affixes) is "rearranged" so that different affixes are made from the original ones.

For example, the word "hamburger" was not made from combining the words "ham" and "burger". Rather, it was made by combining the word "Hamburg" (as in the city in Germany) with the suffix "-er" (meaning "of" or "from"). However, "hamburger" was rebracketed from [hamburg][er] to [ham][burger]. So, when we build new words from "hamburger", we use the brackets "ham" and "burger", not the brackets "hamburg" and "er". Thus, we use "cheeseburger", "fish burger", "veggie burger", etc. We don't use "cheeser", "fisher", "veggier", etc.

Another good example of rebracketing is "helicopter". It was originally made by combining the word "helico" (meaning "spiral") and "pter" (meaning "wing" or "feather", as in "pterodactyl"). But, over time, it was rebracketed from [helico][pter] to [heli][copter], resulting in words like "helipad" and "gyrocopter", not "helicopad" and "gyropter".

One more, and my personal favorite, is "alcoholic". It comes from the word "alcohol" and the suffix "-ic" (meaning "of" or "pertaining to"). Over time, though, this was rebracketed from [alcohol][ic] to [alc][oholic]. This results in words like "workaholic", "chocoholic", and "shopaholic", not "workic", "chockic", and "shoppic". One joke you might see a lot in linguistic circles is "What's a workaholic addicted to? Workahol!"

For a great article containing more examples of rebracketing, check out the article Starkey wrote about the subject.

[rafr]

Isle of Rebracketing

[coquelicoq]

[Image description: Photo of a note taped to the dashboard of a car that reads: "Be alert! The world needs more lerts" /end ID]

from my grandmother's dash to yours <3

[oneefin]

the word "cheeseburger" implies the existence of the german city Cheeseburg.

if you look closely at your map of germany you may also see Beefburg, Chickenburg, Fishburg, Veggieburg, Blackbeanburg, Impossibleburg, Nothingburg, and Whataburg

some maps may even contain the obscure Whopp, the location of burger king's hq, or even Baconat, the location of wendy's' hq

[soufre-de-paris]

rebracketing is the best thing to happen to english and i will die on this hill

[santumerino]

rebracketing

apng is the dumbest file extension. i already knew it was a png. what is next? apdf? amp3?

[unproduciblesmackdown]

shake your hand in character ft. flashback joe iconis, cyril von miserthorpe, krampus, the fancy tree, mister macabee, quince, little evalina, debra neezer jolie, flashback joe jr., flashback mama, poinsettia, hot candy, clouds, santa, aunt lorette, rufus?

[sonsband]

I really do need to get my shit together and stop letting the mind games get in the way of my pole work

[thunderboltfire]

The side effect of my mother tongue is that I’m automatically rebracketing the word “githyanki”

In Polish, the suffix “-ki” is characteristic for plural nouns.

When it comes to people, there’s a group of female nouns that pretty regularly usually ends with “-ka” includes nationalities and town citizens. So French woman would be Francuzka, pl. Francuzki, Swedish woman would be Szwedka, pl. Szwedki, girl/woman from Warsaw would be warszawianka, pl. warszawianki, it’s pretty consistent, because largely the basic form of nationality is male, and female form uses the formant “-ka” during the word formation.

So by my first instinct, the word “githyanki”:

- sounds like a female noun

- sounds like it’s plural, and the singular form would be githyanka.

Which is not true, because githyanki is one of the names that remain completely unchanged and uninflected in translation and as far as I know it’s a name that can be either singular or plural and it doesn’t change its form at all. However, I can’t get rid of that notion and playing BG3 only reminded me of it.

[paksenarrion-dorthansdotter]

we also have "an apron," which was "a napron" at one time! gotta love rebracketing

here have a fun etymology fact that sounds exactly like a shitpost:

adders (those european snakes) used to be called "nadders", but people kept mishearing "a nadder" as "an adder" and eventually just started writing it down the latter way.

the same thing happened in reverse with newts, which went "an eute" => "a neute" => spelling eventually shifted to "a newt".

[brightgreendandelions]

have you dyed your hair?

if so, what colours have you done it in before?

yeah, but there wasn't enough to do my full hair. and it turned yellow after 3 months and back to normal after a year :(

i want to do it again...

here, read my previous post!!

[oneefin]

nonapology

n.

the study of the supreme court

[yeoldenews]

While we’re on the subject of names, is there an explanation for how traditional nicknames came about that are seemingly unrelated to, or have little in common with, the original name?

ie- John/Jack, Richard/Dick, Henry/Harry/Hank, Charles/Chuck, Margaret/Peggy/Daisy, Sarah/Sally, Mary/Molly, Anne/Nan, etc

I am actually over a week into researching a huge follow-up post (probably more than one if I’m being honest) about the history of nickname usage, so I will be going into this in much, much more detail at a hopefully not-so-later date - if I have not lost my mind. (Two days ago I spent three hours chasing down a source lead that turned out to be a typographical error from 1727 that was then quoted in source after source for the next 150 years.)

As a preview though, here’s some info about the names you mentioned:

The origins of a good portion of common English nicknames come down to the simple fact that people really, really like rhyming things. Will 🠞Bill, Rob🠞Bob, Rick🠞Dick, Meg🠞Peg.

It may seem like a weird reason, but how many of you have known an Anna/Hannah-Banana? I exclusively refer to my Mom’s cat as Toes even though her name is Moe (Moesie-Toesies 🠞 Toesies 🠞 Toes).

Jack likely evolved from the use of the Middle English diminutive suffix “-chen” - pronounced (and often spelled) “-kyn” or “kin”. The use of -chen as a diminutive suffix still endures in modern German - as in “liebchen” = sweetheart (lieb “love” + -chen).

John (Jan) 🠞 Jankin 🠞 Jackin 🠞 Jack.

Hank was also originally a nickname for John from the same source. I and J were not distinct letters in English until the 17th Century. “Iankin” would have been nearly indistinguishable in pronunciation from “Hankin” due to H-dropping. It’s believed to have switched over to being a nickname for Henry in early Colonial America due to the English being exposed to the Dutch nickname for Henrik - “Henk”.

Harry is thought to be a remnant of how Henry was pronounced up until the early modern era. The name was introduced to England during the Norman conquest as the French Henri (On-REE). The already muted nasal n was dropped in the English pronunciation. With a lack of standardized spelling, the two names were used interchangeably in records throughout the middle ages. So all the early English King Henrys would have written their name Henry and pronounced it Harry.

Sally and Molly likely developed simply because little kids can’t say R’s or L’s. Mary 🠞 Mawy 🠞 Molly. Sary 🠞 Sawy 🠞 Sally.

Daisy became a nickname for Margaret because in French garden daisies are called marguerites.

Nan for Anne is an example of a very cool linguistic process called rebracketing, where two words that are often said/written together transfer letters/morphemes over time. The English use of “an” instead of “a” before words beginning with vowels is a common cause of rebracketing. For example: the Middle English “an eute” became “a newt”, and “a napron” became “an apron”. In the case of nicknames the use of the archaic possessive “mine” is often the culprit. “Mine Anne” over time became “My Nan” as “mine” fell out of use. Ned and Nell have the same origin.

Oddly enough the word “nickname” is itself a result of rebracketing, from the Middle English “an eke (meaning additional) name”.

I realized earlier this week that my cat (Toe’s sister) also has a rebracketing nickname. Her name is Mina, but I call her Nom Nom - formed by me being very annoying and saying her name a bunch of time in a row - miNAMiNAMiNAM.

Chuck is a very modern (20th century) nickname which I’ll have to get back to you on as I started my research in the 16th century and am only up to the 1810s so far lol.

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Already mentioned this in the notes, but for the benefit of anyone else wondering:

It's a linguistic process called rebracketing! In our world, this nickname formation was seen with the affectionate "mine Edward" becoming "my Ned". Or "mine Edmund", Edgar, etc, a bunch of "Ed" names that got the nickname "Ned" in history. GRRM is just leaning on that same process with his Westeros variants Eddard and Edric, probably expecting them to be recognizable since such Ed/Ned names occur in Shakespeare and other popular history and historical fiction sources.

Rebracketing is also how Nan became a nickname for Ann or Anna, Nell a nickname for Eleanor or Ellen, and how "my nuncle" came from "mine uncle". Oh and some of my favorite examples of rebracketing: Hamburg > hamburger (originally a ground meat dish from Hamburg) > burger > cheeseburger, and the Arabic al-kuḥl ("the kohl", a fine powder of antimony made into a tincture) > alcohol > alcoholic > chocoholic or workoholic. Rebracketing is very neat.

Never understood how you got from Eddard to Ned

[official-linguistics-post]

dear linguistics person

is there a name for like. incorrect suffixes? that were cut off incorrectly from the original word? i can only think of two examples (-holic from alcoholic and -copter from helicopter) but there must be more. please tell me there's some sweet sweet hyperspecific linguistics term for that and maybe some more examples!!!

REBRACKETING!!! like hamburg+er > ham+burger.

one of my fave rebrackets is "nickname": originally an eke-name "an other-name," it got reanalyzed to tack the -n from the indefinite article onto the front of eke, and because of THAT we now get folk etymologies like the idea that it refers specifically to nicholas>nick